Mastercard patents a technology to verify payment cards using blockchain

8 June 2018

Recent filing made by Mastercard with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) suggests that the payment solutions company seeks to integrate public blockchains into its existing system for verifying the payment cards during the transactions.

The filing shows that Mastercard wants to test the process of transferring the payment credentials and after retrieving them for verification over the public blockchains. In the filing the company says that it plans to use the two-way method for encrypting an image of a plastic card for further storing it in the blockchain with the use of public and private keys just is the case with major existing cryptocurrency networks. When a user retrieves the image during a payment, the architecture will be requesting private keys for decrypting the data for verification.

Mastercard believes that with the new technology it may take transactions to a new level of security, because cardholders won’t need to physically provide their cards, thus, mitigating the risks of card skimming from the terminal device.

The company explained that the transactions will involve indication of a machine-readable code, preventing the skimming of payment credentials, because the process of reading this code could be easily controlled thanks to the holding display, which is protected and concealed when it is in a pocket or wallet.